Many personal devices such as cellular telephones, digital assistants and other appliances contain personalized data. Personalized data includes telephone and address book information, speed dial numbers, task lists, calendar information, home page, book-marked web sites, password histories, user settings, graphical interface configurations and other information. Technology is changing rapidly, and users upgrade to new higher function appliances quite often. When changing or upgrading to new devices, personal information in the old device needs to be entered in a new device. It is time consuming to manually enter the new information into the new device.
Some device providers have tools that can obtain information from the old device and transfer it to the new device provided both devices are communicating directly with the tool. Some personal digital assistant appliances have the capability to beam a business card or file to another digital assistant via infrared ports, or to transfer information to a computer system via network. However, it is difficult to transfer personal information between such appliances when switching or upgrading to new appliances. It is even harder to transfer appliance preference personal information that customizes the operation of the appliance.